Wirral Hospitals NHS Trust
 Dr TD Kennedy
Consultant Rheumatologist and General Physician at Wirral Hospital NHS
Trust,
The Path.Finder project began on the Wirral in 1994 as a means of encouraging
best referral practice, linking this to patient information and service
descriptions. Dr Kennedy has clincally led the Wirral project and has
been the Chairman of the National Path.Finder Consortium Executive Steering
group since its inception.
He is also on the Clinical Affairs Committee and Board of the British
Society of Rheumatology and the IT committee of the Royal College of Physicians.
E-mail:TomDKen@aol.com
Jason Clarke
Path.Finder Project Manager/Project Manager to the National Consortium
Jason's First Degree is in Education as a PE and Science teacher. However,
he started life in the NHS as a Lifestyles Appraiser and then as a Project
Manager with Health Promotion overseeing several motivational exercise
related community projects.
Jason then moved into the clinical setting as a Clinical Governance Project
Manager servicing the directorates of General Surgery, Orthopaedics and
A&E. A strong interest in IT projects attracted him to the Wirral
Path.Finder team at the beginning of November 2000 as Path.Finder coordinator,
replacing Simon Pearson as Project Manager in December 2001
In addition, he currently maintains the Consortium website and provides
technical support, advice and training to the 14 UK Trusts which make
up the National Path.Finder Consortium.
Jason can be contacted on 0151 651 3883
or by E-mail:Jason.clarke@whnt.nhs.uk
How to find us
From the South/East (M6/M56/M53)
Take exit 3 from the M53, taking the first left from the roundabout.
Continue for approximately half a mile and then turn right at the roundabout
(the 2nd exit). Turn left at the following set of traffic lights which
will take you into the hospital grounds.
From Liverpool
Travel through the "Wallasey" Tunnel (The Kingsway Tunnel)
which leads out onto the M53. Take exit 3 from the M53 and turn right
at the roundabout (the 2nd exit). Turn left at the following set of traffic
lights which will take you into the hospital grounds.
Both routes have clear signposting.
Visitor parking is at the front of the hospital and behind maternity.
Path.Finder Development in Wirral
Wirral Hospitals NHS Trust, is a 1200-bed general hospital with 90 wards,
which has been working with Path.Finder since 1994. 2 years ago the Trust
replaced their current version of Path.Finder, which ran on proprietary
hypertext technology, with a solution based around XML.
Data formatted using XML is delivered through a browser interface, this
has enabled the Trust to roll Path.Finder out to a wider audience. At
present Path.Finder is available on the hospital Intranet, although this
can only be accessed from the Ward Managers PC. It has also been available
over NHSNet via the Wirral Health Authority servers, allowing every GP
in the locality to access the system from their desktop. A rolling program
of education for the GPs and updates to the system is place to ensure
that enthusiasm and usefulness are maintained.
In addition XML allows the Trust to incorporate a greater range of media
types and link Path.Finder guidelines to web-based information provided
by other healthcare organisations.
The Future
The Path.Finder project is fundamental to the development and implementation
of Wirral's plans for XML. Because XML is inherently compatible with database
technology, the Trust is now exploring the possibility of providing referral
forms online. These forms are initially being coded in HTML for evaluation
but when the final version is decided upon, they will be converted to
XML allowing the patient data to be sent directly to a referral database
at the Hospital.
In addition the Trust is beginning to develop EPRs using XML, the structure
provided by XML will allow Wirral to link patient and Path.Finder records
together. For example a clinician will be able to use the clinical codes
for the diagnosis in the patient record to jump to the relevant clinical
guidelines for that condition in Path.Finder.
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